Dear Leader reckons he's an internet expert

Are you on Facebook? ... North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il (right) talks to South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun in the North Korean capital last week.Photo: Pool

October 8, 2007 - 12:12PM

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il called himself an "internet
expert" during summit talks with South Korea's president last week,
according to news report.

The reclusive leader - known by his countrymen as the Dear
Leader - made the remark after South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun
asked that South Korean companies operating at an industrial park
in the North Korean city of Kaesong be allowed to use the internet,
Yonhap news agency reported, without citing any source.

"I'm an internet expert too. It's all right to wire the
industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions
of the North are wired," Kim told Roh, according to Yonhap.

"If that problem is addressed, there is no reason not to open"
the internet, Kim said.

This week's summit - the second-ever such meeting between the
two Koreas - produced a wide-ranging reconciliation pact that calls
for establishing a new special economic zone in North Korea and
expanding the Kaesong factory park.

North Korea is one of the world's most closed nations, with the
totalitarian regime tightly controlling outside information and
tolerating no dissent. Radios and TV sets in North Korea can only
receive state broadcasts and ordinary people are banned from using
mobile phones, let alone the Internet.

However, the country's ruling elite appear to have regular
access to outside information.

Kim reportedly asked former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright for her email address when she visited Pyongyang in 2000.
A North Korean general cracked a joke about President Bush during
high-level military talks with the South earlier this year, saying
he read it on the internet.